#and most old KakaIru doujins have a very blatant seme-uke dynamic

[huskymaine]

Unpopular opinion : kakairu ship is overrated

strongly agree | agree | neutral | disagree | strongly disagree

I am not actively ship it, but I can see the appeal of this ship. They got shy-shy in their conversation about Naruto, Kakashi’s ‘tough way’ and Iruka’s ‘soft way’ at handling Team 7’s Chuunin Exam, Iruka protected a kid and the Kakashi came and strongly grabbed the Pain’s hand from Iruka, those scenes are indeed very alluring and potentially create many romantic fluff and domestic scenarios. Because of that, I don’t think this ship is a crack ship despite the little amount of canon basis compared to other Kakashi ships like KakaObi, KakaGai, and even KakaYama. Also since KakaObi, KakaGai, and KakaYama are fully developed only on part 2 (KakaGai got some development on part 1 too and KakaObi was hinted) making KakaIru has the advantage of an early start. It’s really not weird or surprising that KakaIru has the most contents among Kakashi ships.

But I am admittedly very, veeerrryyyyy picky when it comes to consuming KakaIru contents like fics or fancomics. Why? Because I just love Kakashi’s canon story and characterization so much while in my opinion some KakaIru contents overrate the impact Iruka has on Kakashi and vice versa to the point that it massively deviated from their canon version.

Unfortunately, it’s hard to be a picky person in the sea of KakaIru contents and find one from the million KakaIru content that was ‘clicked’ for me haha. Very often I stopped reading KakaIru fics halfway because I just feel disagree downright annoyed with Kakashi’s (also Iruka’s) characterization as the story goes. So sometimes I filtered out KakaIru tag when I am in the mood to read fics or fancomics. Sorry.

I mean like, Iruka and Kakashi are acquaintance at best, stranger at worst. And truthfully, there’s nothing wrong with that. Romantic story between two acquaintances and even strangers are valid especially when they have common interest, in KakaIru’s case namely Naruto. But, sometimes its shippers try to push Iruka and Kakashi to be each other’s “one and only” too hard, and that resulted in a complete erasure of other people that was already in Kakashi and Iruka’s lives. For example, I read a fic that portrays Kakashi didn’t have any real friend before he met Iruka. That truly left a bad taste on my mouth because Gai is the realest friend you can ever get and there’s nothing fake in Kakashi’s friendship with Asuma and Kurenai. Or the description that “Iruka is the only one who can touch and melt Kakashi’s cold heart”. Uh, canonly Obito holds that role and then kinda bit Team 7. In canon when Kakashi and Iruka met and talk on the first time, Kakashi is already a quite warm person (see Kakashi’s conversation with Inari). Also those who portray Iruka as the only one who can surprise Kakashi, say hello to Kakashi’s beloved Most Unpredictable Number One Hyperactive Knucklehead Ninja (PLATONICALLY).

Then in Iruka’s case, I know that a filler episode made Kakashi to be the one who convince Iruka to accept Naruto, but on Chapter 1, it’s wholly Iruka’s effort to sacrifice his life for Naruto and acknowledge his existence. To give the credit to Kakashi for the sake of romantic story is quite bit....unsettling for me. Also about Iruka’s grief for his parents. You can hate Hiruzen all you want, but the one who told Iruka that he was not alone after his parents’ death is Hiruzen, not and never Kakashi. Lastly, indeed Iruka was dramatically saved by Kakashi from Pain and maybe also in other fillers episodes, but he was still a trained ninja. Him tearfully praying “Kakashi-san (or usually “Kashi”, when the fic is already at the point of calling nickname), please save me!” every time he encounters danger is a huge disservice for him, don’t you think?

Not to mention KakaIru contents that completely strayed from canon like secret ANBU Iruka or Popular Sex God Kakashi...

So yeah, while I understand the appeal of this ship and think there’s nothing wrong the fact that it was the most popular Kakashi ship, I was a bit saddened by the fact that majority of those huge number of shipper contents have a very little care of canon characterization to the point that it feel for me like I don’t read a story about Kakashi and Iruka, but a story about two strangers that were named Kakashi and Iruka. I know that it can’t be helped for them to go hard on headcanon land since KakaIru has a very little canon basis but still...

(Or someone can pretty please recommend me KakaIru fics and/or doujins that have Kakashi and Iruka in character?)